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Pratt: Redford now has to accommodate left-of-centre voters

Alison Redford's Conservatives decisively turned back a strong challenge from the Wildrose on Monday, and the premier now faces a challenge to build a party that will accommodate the demands of new left-of-centre voters who piled on the PC train.

EDMONTON — Alison Redford's Conservatives decisively turned back a strong challenge from the Wildrose on Monday, and the premier now faces a challenge to build a party that will accommodate the demands of new left-of-centre voters who piled on the PC train.

In a strong 60-seat victory, Redford, PC leader for only seven months, also salvaged her own leadership that was under fire over controversies such as the no-meet committee and shaky start to the PC campaign.

Redford's victory only solidified in the last couple of days when undecided voters and Liberals turned to the PCs, said Chaldeans Mensah, political science professor at MacEwan University. These voters saw missteps in the Wildrose campaign, such as the socially conservative views expressed by a few candidates, that sent them to the Tories.

"It's a classic case study in strategic voting," Mensah said.

"But the progressive voters didn't give the Tories a blank cheque. People want change but were uncomfortable with the Wildrose."

The victory is also a vindication of Redford's call for change, a campaign she started when she made her run for the leadership but which was not fully embraced by the party.

But the victory does present some challenges for Redford, who now runs a PC party that will have to settle in a new place on the political spectrum — one that not all Tories may be comfortable with.

The issue is illuminated in a joke making the rounds in Calgary. The Liberals can't get elected unless they change their name, goes the joke. Now they have a new name — Progressive Conservative.

With Monday's defeat of right-of-centre heavyweight Ted Morton, Redford lost the major conservative credentials it had as a big-tent party.

The election, it seems, signals an end to the big-tent tradition that began in the Lougheed era. A new realignment of the political landscape, more polarized, has the Wildrose established firmly on the right and the PCs moving to the centre.

If the Redford Tories decide they want to end the civil war and get back to the big tent, there may be pressure from longtime Tories to move right. In that scenario, provincial politics could follow the split in the federal Conservatives in the 1990s after the rise of the Reform party in the West. It took a decade of wrangling to unite the right and in the new Harper Conservative party, the old Red Tories disappeared.

Vitor Marciano, Wildrose campaign manager and a Senate-election candidate, says he sees little chance the federal scenario — a move to unite the right — will play out in Alberta, especially if Redford stays at the helm for any length of time.

"She has no interest in uniting the right and she will be elected by centre-left voters, Liberals and New Democrats," said Marciano.

"More likely, if we form government, the blue Tories will gravitate to us and reds will go to the Liberals."

Redford's victory is more remarkable given that going into the election campaign, the Conservatives were suffering brand fatigue and were hurt by some "bad political judgment" on Redford's part during the spring legislature session, said Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University.

Redford had a 20-point lead in the polls in February, Bratt noted, but ignored the advice of many in the party to call an election. That lead dissipated after a series of poor decisions, the chief one being her decision to delay the election until after the spring session and a budget, he said.

Redford didn't make a clear decision on the no-meet committee which saw MLAs paid for work they didn't do. She also promised, but did not call, a public inquiry into bullying of health-care professionals. The decisions hurt her credibility as a leader for change.

After a while, the mood became "I just want the Tories out" and the Wildrose was well organized to exploit that discontent with a well-run campaign that hammered on Tory arrogance, said Bratt.

But despite the rocky campaign, Redford proved a tough campaigner, said Peter McCormack, political commentator from Lethbridge.

"When many people would have left the room, she did not lose her nerve, she stood firm and stuck to her message" even after many Tories had written her off, he said.

Redford also took over a Conservative party that was already divided, said Dave Taras, a political scientist at Mount Royal University.

"The Tory party had in a large part left Redford before she took over the leadership," said Taras. A major sign of trouble was the low turnout in the leadership race — only about half the voters of 2006, he noted.

Moreover, Ted Morton's failure to rally much support signalled that the right wing " had already left the party," said Taras.